Like Fathers Like Son
by windscryer
Summary: Tony's brain was more than prepared to fill in the blanks—everything from Peter falling off the monkey bars and breaking his leg to a school shooting or terrorist attack. [Superfamily] [Steve/Tony]


Disclaimer: Not mine. Sad, but true.

* * *

Tony had been in a meeting when the call came through and Pepper confiscated his phone before it started, so all he had to go on was a terse message telling him he needed to come to Peter's school as soon as possible.

Nothing had been said about why he was so urgently needed at the private elementary school, but Tony's brain was more than prepared to fill in the blanks—everything from Peter falling off the monkey bars and breaking his leg to a school shooting or terrorist attack.

Of course, he would have known if it was the latter because the Assemble Alert couldn't be silenced like everything else on his phone. It even worked when the phone was turned off. It was sort of high priority like that.

Avengers-level seriousness aside, there were still a lot of terrible things that could have happened at an elementary school. Tony knew—he'd perpetrated more than few such incidents in his time.

It didn't help that he couldn't get ahold of Steve. Did he know? Was he already there? Why the fucking hell wasn't he answering his goddamned phone?

"Peter's school," Tony snapped as he slid into the back seat. Happy shut the door and circled around quickly, pulling into traffic almost fast enough to satisfy Tony's jangled nerves.

"I'm sure he's okay, Boss," Happy said. "Peter's tough for a little kid. Damn near took me down last week when I was showing him how to take down anyone bigger than him, you know, in case someone tries to grab him."

Tony felt the blood drain from his face and gripped the leather seat until his fingertips hurt.

"Not that I think that's what happened. And even if it did, I'm telling you, no one would be able to take Peter. He'd make them regret even trying, no question about it."

Tony swallowed and nodded. "Of course not," he said, and it _almost_ sounded like he actually believed it.

God what if that was it? What if someone had tried to kidnap Peter? What if they'd fucking _succeeded_?

Now the thought was in there, he couldn't get it out.

White-hot rage blanked out his vision for a moment and when he inhaled deeply he could smell the stench of Gulmira, despite it being over two decades behind him, and, well, not actually _smelling_ anything when he was there thanks to the suit's air filters.

If someone had dared lay a hand on his son, there would be blood and pain and—

_God,_ he thought, and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, ignoring the way they shook.

He couldn't even think about that. He just— _Fuck._

It took five minutes of Bruce's breathing exercises to get himself under control again.

Happy seemed to realize that saying anything else would only be taking a backhoe to the hole he'd already dug himself into, but he kept shooting Tony looks in the rearview mirror until Tony got annoyed enough to raise the privacy screen. He slumped down in his seat, eyed the minibar, and then pointedly looked away with a huff. Crossing his arms over his chest helped stifle the urge to reach out and get a drink anyway, but it left him with enough nerves to tap at his elbow until he drove himself nuts.

Thank God, they were pulling over to the curb right then.

Tony was out before the car stopped fully, anticipating Happy slamming on the brakes and compensating for the jerk of the car under him. He tugged on his suit jacket's lapels and crossed the sidewalk at a near jog.

Blowing through the security station with a, "Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, AKA one of the city's defenders—you're welcome by the way—I'm not waiting for you to verify my identity because I know you know who I am." He gestured at one guard's slack jaw without slowing down and said, "Exactly."

He reached the far side of the large entryway and stopped, spinning in a circle as he tried to remember which way the office was, and looking for anyone who might be able to help. He only saw the guards and they were way the fuck back at the entrance so instead he said, "Fuck it," and chose left.

"Tony!"

He whirled around to see Steve just coming around a corner further down the right hallway, Peter at his side with a ducked head and a fist wrapped tightly around his backpack strap.

"Oh thank God," Tony said and closed the distance between them. He was looking at Steve who was frowning, but his eyes couldn't linger there because he had to be sure Peter was okay and, God, this hunched over little boy was not his Peter. It looked like him, yeah, but Peter never stopped moving and never shut the hell up and Tony loved every minute of it.

Okay, there were a few seconds here and there where he wished for a quieter son, but seeing it in reality, here, now, he took all those wishes back.

Dropping to a crouch as Peter shuffled to a stop at Steve's side, Tony put a hand under his chin and tipped the kid's head up, craning his neck to the side to meet him halfway.

"What the fuck is that?" he snarled when he saw the darkening circle around Peter's left eye. Peter flinched and Tony immediately dialed back the anger, though not before Steve got in a reproving, "Tony, language."

"Yeah," Tony said dismissively, though he did soften his next words to a, "screw that." His eyes darted up to Steve, but they didn't stay there—couldn't—when there was glaring evidence that someone had _hit his son_. "What the fuck happened?"

Steve just sighed and said, "We need to talk at home."

Tony straightened and said, "Oh hell no. I need to talk to someone here. We do not pay $25,000 a semester for Peter to come home with a black eye. What the hell are they teaching in math these days?"

"Tony," Steve said, and reached out to grab his arm as he went past. Fifteen-plus years of the close quarters that come from married life was enough for Tony to dodge the hand and keep right on moving.

"Tony, wait!"

"Happy's outside. Get him some ice from the car, I'll meet you there after I finish withdrawing Peter from this second-rate institution of _supposed_—"

"Peter got in a fight," Steve said. Tony had just turned the corner when he heard, "About you."

Tony stopped cold, fingers flexing at his sides, vision unfocusing for a moment, then he turned and stepped back so he could pop his head around the corner. "Excuse me?"

Peter had shrunk down even more, looking like he was trying very hard to melt into the tiles beneath his feet.

"I already talked to Principal Davies, Tony. Let's continue this at home, shall we? Or at least in the car."

Tony came back, eyes locked into the brown hair of his son's bowed head, and stopped in front of him. Peter's shoulders crawled up around his ears and then, with an audible swallow, he dared to turn his head and lift it enough to get a look at Tony out of the corner of his eye.

He only took a peek before he reverted to trying to spontaneously develop laser vision.

And Tony remembered that, remembered wanting to disappear when his father was standing over him because he'd fucked up _again_, but he couldn't understand why Peter did now.

It was— It was ridiculous. Peter had nothing to fear from either of his dads and he should damn well know that.

Tony glanced at Steve who was frowning down at Peter as well, his hand on the kid's shoulder for reassurance as much as to keep him from fleeing.

"Hey," Tony said, dropping to a knee and hiding a wince. He wasn't twenty-seven anymore that was for sure.

"Hey," he said again, repeating his earlier gesture of bringing Peter's face up so he could see his eyes. Peter allowed it, but his gaze was shunted to the side, locked on who-the-hell-knew what. A tear welled up over the swelling lid of his right eye and rolled down his cheek.

"I'm sorry," Peter whispered, another tear chasing after the first.

Tony very carefully brought a thumb up to wipe it away, though he only did so below the darkening line. He was familiar enough with black eyes to know that touching the bruise itself would cause further tears, but of pain, not embarrassment or whatever the fuck this was.

"Look at me, Peter," Tony said firmly.

Peter flinched, but dragged his eyes back over to right in front of his feet. He swallowed again before bringing them up.

And then he blinked rapidly at the soft grin on his father's face.

"You kicked his ass, right?"

"Tony!"

"Oh, don't get all righteous on us now, Cap. It's no secret how you feel about bullies and we both know that our son isn't one, so it must have been the other kid. You said yourself it was about me. If whatever he said was enough to make our kid here take a swing at him—"

"That's not the point," Steve said. "And I do hate bullies, but fighting shouldn't be the first resort."

"It wasn't," Peter said so quietly they barely heard him, but both he and Steve locked on immediately.

Peter's eyes had dropped, but they came up now and he had his own tiny smile on his face. "I called him an ignorant asshole before I punched him."

Tony beamed. "That's my boy," he said and ruffled Peter's hair, causing the grin to widen.

"Peter! Tony, don't encourage him to swear!"

"Aren't you the one who's always going on about being honest?" Tony asked as he stood, placing his hand on Peter's other shoulder and turning them toward the exit. "It sounds to me like he was just being honest."

Steve's lips were pressed into a firm line and Tony restrained himself from attacking his husband and kissing that frown until Steve didn't even know his own goddamned name—if only because it was an elementary school and neither of them needed the bad publicity—but it was a close thing.

The stroll back through security was much more relaxed this time, the guard who wasn't still gaping like an idiot saying, "Have a nice day, Mr. Stark. Captain Rogers. See you later, Peter."

Peter waved, his mood considerably brightened now that he had Tony's approval. Which, okay, he didn't completely because, yes, even Tony knew that fighting was bad. But they could get to that later.

"So what exactly did this little punk say about me that got you all riled up?"

Peter tilted his head back to look up at them and said, "That you're not a superhero because if you take away the armor, you're just a regular man." The utter disdain dripping from his tone made it clear what he thought _that_ was a pile of.

Steve's frown grew more pronounced and his eyes suddenly shifted away from Tony's.

Tony sighed and waved for Peter to enter the door Happy was holding open.

Then he turned to his husband and grabbed handfuls of his leather jacket to pull him close. The sidewalk couldn't possibly count as school property, right?

Steve pulled back just a little bit and, because he was Captain America, and, like, physically a decade younger than Tony, it worked, but Tony had learned that trick too and just followed right along, not stopping until Newton's first law came into play and he came to rest against Steve's chest.

And then he pressed forward that little bit more until their lips met.

"Ton—" Steve tried to protest, but Tony had been doing this for a long time and knew very well how to shut Steve up.

Tony... might have lost track of time after that for a bit, but when he pulled back he could see that the shade of guilt was gone from Steve's eyes.

"If I'm not going to let some punkass kid's comment bother me then you shouldn't either. Especially," he added with a leer, "since you know very well what's left when you take away the armor." His eyebrows waggled and Steve barked a laugh and pushed Tony away to stand on his own two feet.

But he softened the rejection with a quickly stolen kiss and a hand on Tony's back to guide him into the car.

"We still have to talk about better ways to handle bullies," he said, nailing both Peter and Tony with the most stern glare he was capable of—which, after that kiss? Wasn't very stern or glaring at all.

"Oh, I don't think it'll be a problem," Peter said. "I mean, I _did_ kick his ass. This is nothing," he said with a wave of his hand toward his eye.

Steve frowned and Tony held up a hand for a high-five. Peter took it and added, "And then I told him that if he still disagreed I could arrange for him to ask you," he said with a nod at Steve who blinked wide eyes at that. "He said that wouldn't be necessary." The shit-eating grin accompanying that statement caused Tony to involuntarily throw his head back with laughter as Happy pulled away from the curb.

"I— But— Wait—" Steve sputtered and Tony put a hand on the back of his neck and squeezed.

"My hero." He looked down at Peter between them and added, "Both of you."

Peter remained triumphantly happy and Steve continued to blush and protest and try to correct Peter's line of thinking all the way home.

God, he loved them.


End file.
